


Waters and Snow

by DarkFairytale



Series: A Song of Snow and Water [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Attraction, Bromance, Crushes, Flirting, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Mutual Pining, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, Spoilers, the new big bromance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 06:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11823006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: Jon and Gendry get to know each other on the journey from Dragonstone to Eastwatch.





	Waters and Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I swear down Jon has not shared that much chemistry with another character since Ygritte. So naturally, I leapt aboard my 100th GoT ship, added it to the armada, and set sail as enthusiastically as Euron frickin' Greyjoy.
> 
> Jondry, folks, the new big bromance. I know the series is picking up pace for the final season, but dear seven gods I hope this bromance is given some more screentime as I am totally sold. Whilst I am more than aware that Jon and Gendry ain't happening in canon (*cough*Brienne and Jaime are going to be canon*cough*it's a matter of time*cough*), I am on board for the ship-worthy bromance.
> 
> Despite this, this fic features bromance AND cute boy crushes, because there are not enough Jondry fics out there. It also features a healthy dose of Dadvos Seaworth and his adopted child Gendry, because they are too cute.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

He’s a surprise, Robert Baratheon’s bastard, and not just for the reason that Jon had not expected Ser Davos to return from King’s Landing with anybody in tow. Gendry marches into the caves of Dragonglass beneath Dragonstone alongside Davos and confidently introduces himself as King Robert’s bastard, entirely in the faith that because Robert Baratheon and Jon’s father had been friends, that they could trust each other.

Jon finds that kind of bold honesty refreshing, because it is a rare thing to find these days. It is something he admires in Davos, too. Davos had been willing to keep Gendry’s identity a secret, yes, but it is clear that that is because Davos wants to protect the boy, and there is a connection, a history there, that Jon is curious to learn.

Gendry is a revelation, because he arrives unexpectedly, reveals his true identity with great enthusiasm, and then immediately offers to join Jon on his mission, well aware of the dangers that lie ahead. He is no swordsman, Gendry says, he is more of a hammer man, and although Jon barely knows him, it seems to make complete sense.

It is rare for Jon to trust someone as quickly as he decides he trusts Gendry. There is just something about him. Something that can also make Jon laugh.

Jon cannot help but notice that a part of their exchange is not at all dissimilar to the conversation he remembers his father having with the King when Robert’s party arrived in Winterfell all those years ago;

“You’ve got fat,” King Robert had said.

There had been a pregnant pause. His father had looked pointedly at Robert’s rounded belly.

Robert had laughed.

“You’re a lot leaner,” Jon had said to Gendry.

“You’re a lot shorter,” Gendry had returned.

There had been a short silence in which Gendry’s face had shown his concern that he had overstepped with the King in the North.

Jon had laughed.

And now, now they are on the water, sailing along the coast up to Eastwatch.

Whilst Jorah Mormont has told Jon of Sam’s saving him from Greyscale at Old Town, and Davos is there to discuss their next moves, it is Gendry he finds himself spending most of his time with on the journey.

On the first day of their travels, Gendry remains polite, stays close to Davos and keeps out of Jon’s way. After his confident introduction, it turns out that Gendry mostly keeps to himself and is very aware of the social divide between himself, Jon, Ser Jorah and Ser Davos. He works hard too, and pitches in with work on the ship, despite having been on a ship only once before. He says he has more experience with rowing boats.

It is not until the second day on the ship that Gendry’s confidence returns to him, as he walks up to Jon with the same purposeful stride that Robert had, and he sits down next to Jon on the deck.

“I knew your sister, Your Grace,” Gendry tells him, in a rush, as though he has been building himself up to say it.

And once again, Gendry surprises him.

Jon blinks at him. “Which one?”

“Arya,” Gendry says. “She saved my life. More than once.”

Jon is rendered speechless.

“You would think that I would be the protector in that scenario,” Gendry jokes, looking a little unsure about Jon’s lack of reply. “But it was mostly entirely the opposite.”

That definitely sounds like the Arya that Jon remembers. He has only recently learned that his sister is still alive and is at Winterfell, and now he has met somebody who had apparently known Arya during those years of her disappearance.

“Have you heard anything of her?” Gendry asks, when Jon continues to say nothing. “Anything at all?”

Jon had always been protective of Arya, had always humoured her wishes to learn to fight instead of learning to sew. She and Robb were the closest to him of his half-siblings growing up, and he loves her fiercely. The fact that Gendry sounds so desperate to know about her welfare, means that Jon instantly likes him more.

“Yes,” Jon is relieved to inform him, “She is alive and at Winterfell. I had thought she was dead as there had been no word of her since my father…” he pauses, “But in the message I received about the White Walkers and Eastwatch, I learned that she and my brother Bran have both returned home.”

Gendry breathes a sigh of relief. “I haven’t seen her for years. Not since before your brother Robb Stark was murdered.” Gendry sends him a sympathetic, and slightly guilty, look.

Jon tries not to think about Robb, and the grief he still feels. He focuses for now on Arya instead.

“How did you know her?” he cannot help but ask.

“It’s a long story, Your Grace,” Gendry warns.

Jon gestures around the deck of the ship, where they will be trapped until they arrive at Eastwatch. “I have time.”

And so, Gendry tells him. Gendry tells him of how Yoren of the Night’s Watch had snuck Arya out of King’s Landing disguised as a boy after the execution of their father, and how Gendry had met her amongst the new recruits, having been sold to the Night’s Watch by his master at the blacksmiths. He tells Jon about their travels, about his realisation that Arya was a girl, and his discovery that she was in fact a Stark. He tells him about the Gold Cloaks finding their party, Yoren and some of their new friends being killed, then being taken prisoner and sent to Harrenhal with a boy strangely known only as ‘Hot Pie’. How they had been put to work there after barely escaping torture, Arya working as a cup bearer for Tywin Lannister. Jon can scarcely believe how his sister had gotten away with such a thing, right under Lord Tywin’s nose. Gendry tells him about a man called Jaqen H’ghar who had helped them escape Harrenhal, and then how they had been picked up by the Brotherhood Without Banners.

Jon listens in stunned silence to Gendry’s story, horrified at all the terrible things that had befallen his sister and the young man before him. He hears about all that they had gone through together, and he feels grateful that his sister had had Gendry there with her, even as Gendry insists that without Arya he would not still be alive.

“I was going to join the Brotherhood,” Gendry ends his tale, “But then I was separated from Arya when the red witch came.”

“The red witch?” Jon asks, cautiously. “Do you mean Melisandre?”

“That’s her,” Gendry replies with venom. “She took me off to Stannis and they planned to kill me, until Davos helped me escape. There’s power in King’s Blood, apparently. They planned to use mine."

Stannis Baratheon had burned his daughter at the stake for that very same reason. Jon can believe it.

"I'm sorry, Your Grace, but she did use my blood to curse the 'usurpers' to Stannis' claim before I could get away. King Joffery, Lord Balon Greyjoy. And your brother, the King in the North. I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do."

Jon knows of Melisandre's power; of the images in the flames and the power of resurrection. But Robb had not been killed by any higher power. Robb had been killed by Roose Bolton on behalf of the Lannisters. Joffrey had been poisoned by one of the many who despised him at his own wedding. Jon knows Melisandre has power, but he does not believe that any withcraft was behind the death of his brother.

"It wasn't your fault, Gendry," Jon tells him, with finality.  
  
Still Gendry lets out a breath of relief whilst he nods, eyes fixed on his hands.  
  
“How do you know her?” Gendry asks then, glancing at Jon. “The red witch?”

Jon clears his throat. “She saw big things for me. Called on her god for me.”

“She saw big things for Stannis, too, and called on her god for him,” Gendry warns. “Don’t trust her.”

She had done more than call on her god for Jon. He had come back from the dead. But he is not about to tell Gendry that. That is maybe a story for later, or not at all. He is happy with not at all.

“I didn’t even know I was Robert Baratheon’s bastard until the red witch took me away,” Gendry explains. “Arya never knew. She knew the Gold Cloaks were after me, but neither of us knew why. I didn’t know King Joffrey had ordered the deaths of all of Robert’s bastards until I got back to King’s Landing.”

They sit in silence for a while. Jon contemplates how Gendry has just revealed his entire life story in one fell swoop, and again, finds the open honesty refreshing. Gendry is not grasping or cunning. He does not want anything from Jon but to help the cause. To save people.

“I mocked Arya for being highborn,” Gendry says after a while, a little sheepish in admitting such a thing to the King in the North. “I never liked highborn folk before her. They were miles away from me. Standing so far above me. I was just a lowborn bastard on the Street of Steel. After knowing the likes of Tywin Lannister and Stannis Baratheon and how they saw me as nothing but an expendable tool for their uses, I didn’t trust them either. I knew Arya was different to them, but I had still teased her for growing up in a castle, being ‘m’lady’. When I first found out I was Robert’s bastard, I couldn’t believe it.”

“What changed, then?” Jon cannot help but ask. “To the man who walked up to me two days ago and proudly announced being Robert Baratheon’s bastard?”

“You’ve got to understand, Your Grace,” Gendry says by way of explanation, “I’d never left King’s Landing before my journey with Arya. It changed everything. It made my world much bigger than it had been before. And then I found myself in hiding right back where I started, making weapons and armour for the people who had killed my father. I didn’t know my father and I never knew what he was like. But I’ve had time to think these last few years. I’ve had time to come to terms and even be a little proud of who I am, even if telling anybody would be the death of me.”

Jon had grown up feeling different for being the bastard of the family. He knew Ramsay Bolton had hated being a ‘Snow’ and of his overwhelming want to be legitimised. But here is the bastard of a noble who grew up not even knowing it, who is now proud to be a bastard of Robert Baratheon, as Jon now is to be a bastard of Ned Stark.

Jon comes to a decision at that moment.

“Will you come back with me and Davos to Winterfell after all of this?” Jon asks. The _if we survive this_ goes unspoken. “You will be able to see Arya again.”

Gendry smiles, then, bright and eager, and his eyes crinkle at the corners and Jon becomes a little distracted by it. He hasn’t seen Gendry smile quite like that before.

“It would be an honour to, your Grace,” Gendry says with enthusiasm. “I am a decent smith, I can work for you.”

It is an abrupt reminder that whilst Gendry and Jon are both the bastards of noble men, Jon is a King whilst Gendry is still classed as lowborn. He isn’t a noble, he isn’t a Ser. Jon had almost forgotten it. Gendry clearly hasn’t.

“I hear you are better than ‘decent’,” Jon remarks.

Davos has been singing Gendry’s praises since the two of them arrived back from King’s Landing. In fact, Davos is better at promoting Gendry than he is at announcing Jon as a King. Davos had saved Gendry’s life, and Jon can see the near-fatherly affection that Davos has for the young man that had grown up in Flea Bottom just like him. Jon only hopes that their capture of the Wight will be successful, so that he can take the both of them back to Winterfell with him.

He has only known Gendry a matter of days, but he already knows that Gendry is the kind of man he wants to surround himself with in the war to come. He just hopes that Gendry’s determination and skill with a hammer will be enough to keep him alive beyond the wall.

Jon decides to teach Gendry how to use a sword, just in case.

Jon spends several days of their journey sparring with Gendry on the deck of the ship, training him how to use a sword, just in case he loses his hammer beyond the wall and has to resort to a blade.

It is like being back with Sam, Edd, Pyp and Grenn at Castle Black. It is like sparring with Robb back at Winterfell, playing at kings and heroes of war. It has been a long time since Jon has been in the company of somebody of his own age, whose company he finds entertaining. Somebody he is quickly considering an ally, a friend. Jon finds himself having _fun;_ something that he has not felt he has had in a long time.

Jon spends an unexpected amount of time in Gendry’s company. Gendry clearly respects him, in awe of the fact that a bastard has risen to the heights of a King, something that had before been an impossible and inconceivable thing to the both of them. But it is more than just being fellow bastards, as they are from entirely different backgrounds, and it is more than just the fact that their fathers had been friends, too, despite their initial introduction revolving around it, because their dynamic is different as much as it is the same. Their growing friendship is more due to the fact that Jon likes Gendry, and Gendry apparently likes Jon, too.

It tends to be Gendry that seeks him out for company, at first, though by the time they reach Eastwatch, it is far more mutual. He finds Gendry watching him sometimes, intrigued and warm. Jon finds himself watching Gendry for the same reasons. Gendry is quick to smile at him, and laugh, and he has an endearing habit of ducking his head with a sheepish grin when he knows he has stepped out of line.

On the day that they pass the last of The Fingers of The Vale, Gendry comes to stand beside him at the port side of the ship.

“What are the noble bastards here called, Your Grace?”

Jon starts with bemusement at the question, sending a sideways glance at Gendry, who merely looks genuinely curious.

“At The Vale they are known as Stone.”

“And in the North they are Snow,” Gendry says.

Jon nods. “So many noble bastards that they needed a name for each region,” he says, and Gendry snorts a laugh. “In the Riverlands, Rivers; in the Stormlands, Storm; the Westerlands, Hill; the Reach, Flowers; in Dorne, Sand; the Iron Islands, Pyke; and in the Crownlands…”

“Waters,” Gendry finishes for him. “If my father had acknowledged me officially as his bastard, I would have been a Waters.” He meets Jon’s eyes, “But he didn’t know me, so I’m just ‘Gendry’,” he smiles at Jon, before looking back out at the distant coastline. “Probably for the best. If he had acknowledged me I would have been dead by now.”

If Robert had acknowledged all of his bastards in King’s Landing there would have been a whole lot more Waters, but now Gendry is one of the only – if not the only – bastards of King Robert left. Jon is thinking it, and Gendry looks like he is thinking the same thing too, if his suddenly melancholy expression is anything to judge by, but he soon shakes it off.

“Besides,” Gendry says, “‘Waters’ isn’t anywhere near as nice as ‘Snow’.”

Jon keeps his smile to himself, because Gendry does not look at him, gazing out at the world in the distance.

As they continue to travel further and further north, the cold of winter hits. Whilst Jon and Davos are used to the cold by now, Gendry and Jorah are not. Jorah grew up on Bear Island, so was born and raised in the northern climate, but he has spent many years across the narrow sea, and then down at Old Town on the southern shore. But with his Mormont upbringing, thick-skin and survivor instinct, he wraps himself up and sits it out, as stubborn as his father had been.

Gendry, however, used to the mild weather of King’s Landing and the blazing heat of a blacksmith’s forge, finds it a little harder. He bundles himself up with the coats that Jon piles on him, his skin a little pale, tinged pink with the bite of the cold. As the ship hugs close to the coastline and winter gets heavier, more extreme, the snowfall even reaches them out on the water. Gendry watches the flakes of snow fall with the wonder of a child from further south.

“It’s beautiful,” Gendry admits to Jon.

Jon watches Gendry watch the snow fall and for the first time in a long time, sees the beauty that Gendry can see, rather than the danger behind those flakes, the promise that _Winter Is Coming_. But they are the words of Jon’s house, and he has been conditioned by experience and knowledge to know that this is true.

The Baratheon’s words are _Ours is the Fury_ and Gendry handles the snow and the cold with bull headed determination and continues to learn how to use a sword with gloved hands. Fury, indeed. Robert Baratheon’s son without a doubt.

Gendry is undoubtedly handsome, with his dark brunet hair, his blue eyes, his trim and muscular physique. Whilst they had been further south, Gendry had sometimes taken his shirt off whilst at work on the ship, and when the snow comes and the coats are the favoured choice, Jon dares not admit to himself that it is a sight that he misses; muscles moving under skin. It is something Jon has never really thought about before, not often considered. He has only ever had one other person truly catch his attention; a bold, wild redhead who was certainly no 'Lady', but she was female. He had not met anybody like her before. But he has not met anybody quite like Gendry before either. Since Ygritte, he has not really looked at anybody at all. Gendry, though, with their instant and easy chemistry, makes him look.

Jon guesses that maybe this is what Robert looked like when he had been young, dark haired and attractive; back when Robert had been smitten with Jon’s aunt, and when he and Jon’s father had beaten the Targaryens in the rebellion. From what Jon knew of Robert and Stannis, and had heard of Lord Renly, Gendry has elements of all of them; strong and fearless like Robert, stubborn and dutiful like Stannis, amiable and good humoured like Renly. Jon and Arya had always looked the most Stark-like of their siblings, and Jon wonders if he looks much like his father had, too. Lords and Ladies in the North have told him so. He hopes he does. He hopes he can live up to his father’s memory.

Jon sits close to Gendry when he sees his teeth start to chatter, as close as he can, and catches himself feeling overly warm on occasion.

“How are you faring?” Jon asks him on one occasion, finding Gendry below decks.

Gendry gives a coincidentally timed full-body shiver, and looks at him, the blue of his eyes bright in the candlelight.

“I’ll get used to it,” Gendry says with determination, “By the time we get there.”

He has his gloves off, sharpening a blade with a whetstone, over and over.

Jon watches him for a while, until Gendry stops, shakes his hands, and then wraps his arms around himself, tucking his hands into his armpits, burying further into his fur cloak.

“I thought it would warm me up,” Gendry admits, nodding towards the abandoned blade and whetstone. “But it hasn’t. My fingers feel numb.”

Jon sits down on the bench and edges closer, “Let me see?”

Gendry immediately obeys, revealing his hands and holding them out for Jon.

Jon takes them in his gloved hands, inspects them. He then pulls his gloves off with his teeth, holds Gendry’s cold hands in his bare ones, and starts to rub them, using his own warmed skin to in turn warm Gendry’s.

Gendry stares at where their hands meet, and then up at Jon. He looks surprised, and a little unsure.

“It’s a known technique,” Jon says by way of explanation.

Gendry relaxes, but only fractionally.

Jon feels the calluses of a blacksmith’s labour under his own work-hardened but softer fingers. He is powerless to stop his mind from wandering; unbidden, but not entirely unwelcome, images of keeping warm in other ways, pressed together, or sharing a bed, creep into his head. He had done the same platonically with his Brothers in the Nights Watch, but he knows this is not quite the same.

When he is satisfied that Gendry’s hands are warmed, he lets go, and looks up at the young man in front of him.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Gendry says, and his voice has changed. It’s a little more vulnerable, a lot more relaxed. He looks smaller, somehow, and his blue eyes stare into Jon’s own, curious.

Jon sends him a quick smile, ducks his head, and puts his gloves back on.

“Anytime,” he says, and cannot help but half hope that Gendry might take him up on it in the future.

Jon shares drinks with Gendry, Davos, Jorah and the others on the odd evening. He watches Davos fuss over Gendry, making sure he is eating enough, drinking enough, is warm enough, and Gendry lets him father him without complaint. He seems to enjoy it, having had no real father figure whilst growing up. Davos does not seem to notice how he has taken the young man under his wing.

“I’m well away from the Waters, now,” Gendry tells Jon one night towards the end of their journey, as they stare out over the dark water. There’s snow on the distant horizon of the North. “We’re in Snow territory.”

“Is that so bad?” Jon asks him.

Gendry shrugs and grins at him. “Snows aren’t so bad. Well, the one I’ve met anyway.”

Jon smiles back at him. “I’ve met a few bastards in my time,” he says, “Rivers, Flowers, Snow…”

“But I’m the best one right?” Gendry teases.

Jon laughs, “Yes, I suppose you’re alright.”

“High praise, Your Grace.” Gendry looks back out to sea. His expression grows serious. “We’ll be there soon.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the snows I’m really worried about,” Gendry says.

Jon worries too. He worries about taking Gendry beyond the wall, not because he does not think Gendry will be able to handle himself, but because by now, he is afraid to lose him. He wants to tell Gendry that he does not have to come beyond the wall with them if he does not want to, that he can stay at Eastwatch with Davos, but he knows Gendry will not hear of it, so he does not even try. A small, guiltier, part of him is very glad that he will have Gendry with him as they attempt to do something that no man has ever done before.

“I’ll do my best to protect you,” Jon promises.

Their breath ghosts into the air like smoke from a dragon's mouth.

“And I’ll keep you safe,” Gendry states in return, as though that is obvious, as though there is no other option.

Jon grew up on stories of Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon, maybe, but it is what Gendry had said to him that stays with him now;

‘All I ever knew is that they fought together and won.’

He hopes that when he and Gendry fight together to bring a Wight through the wall, they will win.

He hopes he can take Gendry home to Winterfell when all this is over, not just for a reunion with Arya, but for himself as well, to keep Gendry close.

He had not known that Robert Baratheon’s bastard had even existed, but now that he does, he does not want to let him go.


End file.
